AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites
By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 24 December 2014).
A former Catholic Brother charged with 252 child sexual assaults appeared in court in Sydney on 24 December 2014 after finally being extradited to Australia from New Zealand. Bernard Kevin McGrath (formerly a member of the St John of God Brothers) faced an extensive list of charges at Sydney’s Parramatta Local Court – including raping, molesting and abusing 35 children – after being flown in from New Zealand in police custody.
He was refused bail.
The case will come up in court again on 29 November 2014 for a brief administrative procedure.
The Australian government has been seeking McGrath’s extradition for three years for crimes he allegedly committed during his time as a Catholic Brother in New South Wales in the 1970s and 1980s.
In August 2014, he was ordered to surrender to Australia by New Zealand’s Justice Minister and then lost a New Zealand High Court appeal against the extradition.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.